Carnaval Brasileiro, 4: Desfile (parade)

Here is my sketchbook ("field book", as my aunt liked to call it) entry for the Carnaval parade, translated from Portuguese to English:

WOW!!!!!!!
Now, this is a party!
From the moment I got to my aunt's mom's apartment, I couldn't sit still, and kept wondering when we would leave to go line up with the school. Beija-Flor was going last, since it won the parade the year before, so we really were not going to leave the apartment for the walk over to the Sambódromo until at least 2. I wanted to leave at 11, get to the concentration zone early to see everyone arriving... ...I wanted to see it all! I also wanted to try a certain cravo escarlate (scarlet clove) drink i had been told about. Apparently it's some mysterious potion that you drink before parading that "lifts your spirits" and gives you the energy to go through with the thing. hmmmm...
To distract us a little, someone told my cousin about a good luck custom (simpatia) to keep it from raining. We were supposed throw soap on a neighbor's roof, one big piece and one small one, while chanting, "Santa Clara, Santa Clara, clareia!"(cue lightning bolts, winds blowing, rushing clouds)... Since it had rained the night before during the parade, and we didn't want it to rain on ours, we decided to oblige by the law of Candomblé. So me, my cousin Tomás, and his friend positioned ourselves to fling chunks of soap at the neighbor's roof; but, since we were in an apartment in a multiple building complex, the best we could do was to try and fling the glycerin blocks from a 9th floor balcony, across the street, and onto the roof of the house on the next block. We missed
with some of the pieces, but missed some of the others; would our voodoo be rewarded?
After these antics and a lot of sitting and waiting, we finally began putting our costumes on. Except we couldn't go down the elevators with everything on. So we rushed downstairs, took the requisite photo shoot, and went off to the Sapucaí.
A highway, and underpass, and a sewage canal later, we found ourselves struggling through a crowd of feathered fun seekers, trying to sneak our way through to our section of the group. I thought our costumes were cumbersome, but some people had no way at all of judging what was behind them or to their sides. There were costumes twice as tall and 4 times as wide as the people inside them, made of heavy gauge cable, feathers, sequins, cardboard, fabrics, and plastic. Heavy shit, too. So the best way to get through this crowd is to maneuver through them sideways, so as not to hit anyone with our massive shoulders. At the end of our pilgrimage, we found the other "shrimp", as one of the destaques on top of the floats so eloquently named us. We should have accounted for the inebriation of the people organizing and participating in this celebration, sonsidering how plastered our wing leader (part of my cousin's family) and some people around us were, and the quantity of beer salesmen weaving between the feathers and armatures. As we heard the explosions of fireworks and looked up to see the signal for our school to start its progression, the same woman who had affectionately called us shrimp screams at us: "Hey shrimp, shrimp! You need to run, your wing is way up there!" Turns out our wing director had no idea what was going on, and was too busy staring at breasts and laughing it up with friends (those are some of the main purposes of Carnaval, after all); so half of the wing was where it needed to be and we, the other half, were stuck about 6 or 7 wings back. All of us started running like mad, weaving our way to the side of the now organized school, and sprinting along the sewage canal (mangue) as residents of the area cheered us on from the other bank. We got to our proper place in line a few seconds before the procession made its turn towards the parade grounds. As we turned towards the avenue, we were still bunched up, disorganized, and trying to jockey for position. In the midst of all of this, the three of us muscled our way to the front of the wing, perfect position to get on TV (yes, sometimes I care about TV ;) )! Once we made that turn, when we finally saw the crowd, and the speakers blasted our song directly on top of us, it finally hit me: I aqm about to parade down the Sambódromo with the champion school, and all of these people are here to party along with us! The endorphins started flowing, and i felt an ecstasy of a different kind than i'd felt before. Instead of the anticipation going away and allowing me to relax, and instead of getting nervous about fucking the whole parade up, the adrenaline progressively rose, and I got more and more lost in the moment! I began to feel just the music, and the crowd, and all of a sudden I remembered every single word of the forsaken song I had taken such a long time trying to memorize. I don't think I actually danced samba proper most of the time, especially with ushers constantly getting us into proper position, making us start and stop, etc. But I was definitely dancing to the music, cheering the crowd on, getting them excited, along with the 4,000 other people in the parade. It was that same connection as I felt in the blocos, but much more intense, almost overwhelming. Sure I had a bit less control over how I felt, but it made for an experience, an emotion, I will never forget! And maybe never be able to duplicate. Permanent smiles don't happen often, especially accompanied by dumb fits of laughter and jumping...
The TV cameras even got quite close to my cousin and I, a camera crew began filming a girl (who thought she was all that) samba'ing next to us, and I tried to push my cousin into the frame and throw myself in at the same time. The crew, obviously experienced at this, immediately turned the camera off and went on to the next wing. Blasts!
At the end of the procession grounds, one of the floats broke down, creating a tremendous bottleneck of people in 12 ft. tall and 6 ft. wide metal armatures... ...very entertaining!
Unfortunately I couldn't get my camera out in time. The space between float and fence was about 10 feet, at the most. Needless to say, some of the camaraderie began to dissipate at this point. The three of us were supposed to wait around the dissipation area for my cousin's aunt, but the others got carried away by the waves of people, while I quickly took my shoulders off and pressed myself against the fence. At the end of it all, we found ourselves waiting by the port-a-potties with one completely destroyed costume (my cousin's), to see if we would run into the "chaperones". After a while I decided we should make our way home. But because we were at the other end of the Sambódromo, it would take a while longer. Considering it was already 5:30 a.m., or even later, we thought it was worth it. Surely the adults didn't need our help getting back. After walking back the distance of the parade grounds, we tried to cut across to get to where we needed to go. Not only had they not let us turn to the correct side of the parade grounds, but the police barred any way back to the side we came from. So we followed a new procession of people; parade participants, locals, spectators, in a mass early morning exodus towards transportation. A couple of hours later, we arrived at the apartment, where I disassembled my costume to take it home. At around 10 am, i went off to my grandmother's, more energized and satisfied than I had been the night before.

Carnaval Brasileiro, 3: Blocos

OK, it's been a long time, so I'm going to try and catch up on all the Brasil trip fodder, as well as new films, exhibits, political hapennings and general rants in the next week or so. Here goes... After spending a few days in Curitiba, in the south of Brasil, I went off to Rio de Janeiro, my home, and the place where I would spend Carnaval. It rained on and off during my first few days in town, before the official beginning of Carnaval, but that did not deter the people from celebrating. Children were on vacation for the summer, and Carnaval tends to coincide with the last week of vacation for most schools. So not only are the kids/college students eager to end their break with the biggest party of the year, but tourists descend on the city, and most people take off work for some of the previous week. Everyone is ready to have fun! When I was little, I remember the centerpiece of Carnaval being the parade at the Sambódromo, with the samba schools and the organized costumes, songs, and themes. I knew that there was more to it, and I knew that people partied on the streets, but I guess I was too young to realize the extent of the chaos. I was about to experience the blocos. A bloco is a group of people that organizes a street Carnaval parade of sorts, usually with a sound truck and drumming group (bateria). It grows over time as more and more people join it, progressing through a stretch of city near its neighborhood of origin. A bloco tipically keeps the party at its apex for a few hours, but some people stay for the whole day. But some blocos go beyond that... My first experience with a bloco was as I waited for a friend of my dad's in a nightlife enclave in Lapa. Since the cell phone I had had horrible reception, and I had only met this friend once or twice in my cognitive years before the previous night, it was a bit foolish to wait around. But I was having fun, looking around at the expensive bars, trying to pick a place to go. Everything fun looked a bit too fancy and indoors; I hadn't come to Brasil to overpay for drinks and not enjoy the summer and Carnaval, so I kept looking. I finally spotted a cart on a street corner selling just caipirinhas and batidas (caipirinhas with different fruit). As I downed my delicious cold beverage and began losing my sense of time and space by the sip, I notice a commotion approaching from beyond the arches. I still don't know the name of the bloco I was in, but it was an incredible initiation. As I was overtaken by the sound truck and drumming section, stupidly drunk people stumbling in their wake, I began to recognize all the songs I had heard so many times during my childhood. Traditional samba songs that I had not heard since 10 years old came to the tips of my lip instantly. It took me another drink to acclimate to the general confusion around me, especially considering I was alone. But I still accompanied the throngs of people along the street, maneuvering around shaking asses, stumbling drunks, piles of beer cans, drums, and parked cars. After a while, including some filming of the rainha de bateria trying to shake it faster than the drummers could keep the beat, I jumped into the crowd and started chanting and dancing along with everyone. Well, I wouldn't call it dancing, because it was more of a 5-block long moshpit, to a samba beat. Sure, there were moments when the crowd flow allowed me a few feet to break it down, but generally it was a lot of jumping to the beat. But the energy is intense, more intense than anything i've ever felt in my life (energy wise ;) ). The rush of everyone in a tightly packed group, there just for the fun, not getting angry about the lack of personal space, just enjoying the sound, the people, the sweat, the laughter... ...it is amazing! everyone must experience that at some point, that type of connection that isn't so much primal, but somehow feels so natural. I don't know, maybe this is why Brazilians are known to be warm people, personable, etc? Maybe we are indoctrinated in these bonding rituals, and it becomes our second nature to carry that mentality to other parts of our life?
Or do i give too much credit to my people? I don't know, I was starting to doubt these silly theories of mine, especially because they weren't based on any recent encounters with brasileiros; but now that I felt the warmth of my people, I begin to realize that I was probably right. When we want to, we can make anyone feel welcome, relaxed, at home. And being from there, I really felt that way. Up to that point, I was remembering old adventures from my childhood, reconnecting to places and people I had not seen for more than a decade, and generally having a time-warping experience. It was when I stepped into that bloco, and became part of that crowd, that i began to reconnect these experiences to my self. I snapped out of my state of awe, and became a brasileiro again. Sounds too melodramatic, I know, but if you know me, you know I've thought about this before I put it down here. The bloco is the quintessentially Brazilian experience, even if not all Brazilians take part in it. Well, maybe futebol and corruption have a place in that experience, but they are more placeless than the bloco.
Well, the crowd continued to parade around Lapa, ending at the arches from which it began. The crowd spread out through the square, and the beer runners that had been weaving through the crowd selling cans of Skol placed themselves in the perimeter, now letting the revelers come to them. With this initial dismantling of the crowd, it suddenly began to pour. People were initially in shock, and some didn't even try to run for cover. I was laughing my ass off at the whole situation, but even the bloco could not withstand this toró (torrential downpour). I rushed into a club that happened to be having a live afro-brazilian show, with an Olodum tribute band on hand. Wow! I stayed there perfecting my moves for another 3 hours , until the DJ started playing some shitty hip-hop. Follow the bloco, and you will reach some fun, even afterwards...

blurry crowd in the bloco in Lapa

My next bloco experience involved my dad's friend, Sérgio, two days later. We met in the center of the city under the pretense of tagging along with Cordão da Bola Preta, the oldest bloco in Rio. Meeting him was no problem this time, as it was daylight and we arranged for a calm rendezvous point. But once we got closer to the starting spot for the bloco we realized the mistake we'd made; we could not get within 5 blocks of the square we were supposed to be at, because the crowd was too dense! At this point, we became more determined to fight our way and get to the actual bloco, by whatever means necessary. A 5 block radius around the praça had become a gigantic urban tailgate party, with barbecues, beer carts, lawn chairs, live music, radios, and even sacolés (popsicle in a bag, sort of) made with caipirinha!!! Regardless of the fun these people seemed to be having, we had a mission.
Half an hour and four blocks later, we arrived at the beginning of Avenida Rio Branco, one of the main avenues of the center. From there, for a span of about 20 blocks, all I could see was people! Never mind that it had just taken us 30 minutes (and 3 beers) to get through the previous crowd, we were now confronted by more people than I could have imagined, lots of them dressed in black and white polka-dotted garb belonging to the group. I believe there were estimates floating around between 500,000 and 2 million people on the streets, and I think I could believe those numbers (especially over a whole day). We battled our way to the front one beer at a time, and made it very near the sound truck. But I never saw the percussion section. I did see a random tour bus roaming the crowd, with various "personalities" inside, not having nearly the amount of fun those of us in the sun were. :P

Cordão da Bola Preta, Avenida Rio Branco

After singing through the history of samba, for a couple of hours, Sérgio and I resumed our bar hopping from a few nights before. He took me to one of their favorite hangouts from the past, a bar called Paulistinha. We ate the best bolinhos de bacalhau I've ever had, danced and singed to some more street samba (this time on a stage closing off the small street from the rest of the commotion in the center), and got generally plastered. Stories of my father's debaucherous years came to the fore, and I even visited the old pool hall where they used to not play any pool at all. Like I said, the bloco gives you a great time, and it seems to guide you towards even more fun...

Over the rest of my time in Rio I went to a few more blocos. One of note was Vaga-Lume, which paraded in the neighborhood of Horto near the Botanical Gardens. Vaga-lume is the name for firefly in portuguese, so participants were supposed to bring a lighter to brighten up the night near the park. Sadly, I missed the organized part of the celebration, but my bus was filled with drunken teenagers singing songs and being generally rowdy. That was a treat; the bus driver almost walked away from his job just to get some peace and quiet. :D But my cousin and my aunt played percussion with the group in this bloco, and I did stick around for the party afterwards. The crowd was the youngest of any bloco, and the sound truck blasted some more electronically infused music while the drummers took a break. Some of the funniest stuff was happening on the side streets, were guys were pissing on every single doorstep and tree, and even girls were straddling between parked cars. But you know, it didn't really smell any different...
I jumped in and out of a few more blocos; whenever I felt like dancing a littgle, there was always one around the corner, ready to make me feel at home.